“The Assassins have a stringent rule. When one of their members is captured by the law, he either takes his own life, or is dispatched by another member of the cult.”.
“None of us were aware of this.”
“I read up on it during my trip home with the Princess.”
The Commissioner turned now, and his eyes were dark. “Where is your home?”
“In a remote sector of the world, Commissioner. I assure you it would do no good to name the place. It is not on any map.”
“And while there you researched the habits of the Assassins, as you call these people?”
The Phantom nodded.
The Commissioner plunged his hands into the pockets of his coat and slouched down in the seat. “Perhaps we shall have to rethink our plan of attack.”
The Phantom smiled. “Exactly what I have been studying.” He hesitated. “Our primary mission is still to find and release Diana Palmer.”
Nolan grunted. “There has been no further word from the Palmer residence.”
“Then obviously no more ransom notes have been delivered.” The Phantom could feel his hands growing cold. “Perhaps Kali and his men have done away with her.”
“Not likely. The way I read this mob—or cult as you call it—is this: they’re after money. They’ll hang onto her until they get the money. They’re hidden somewhere, and very well hidden. There’s been no sign yet of that hijacked airliner.”
“I assume they’re trying to work the Tydore kidnapping now. They’ve failed in two attempts to collect ransom—in Diana’s kidnapping, and in the aborted attempt on Princess Naji.”
“Who’s next?”
“It’s obvious. Prince Tydore himself.”
Commissioner Nolan sank back in the seat again. “I could fortify Prince Ty.dore’s guards by adding city police.”
The Phantom smiled thinly. “You’ve finally come around to admitting I was right in the first place.”
“Perhaps.”
“I’m going to surprise you, Commissioner. I’m going to recommend that you not do that.”
Nolan blinked.
“It’s obvious that the more of Kali’s men we capture, the more corpses we’re going to have on our hands.”
“I see what you’re getting at.”
“Let’s play it another way.”
“How’s that?”
The Phantom gathered his thoughts together, frowned, and began to phrase them verbally.
A small portable transmitter had been set up against the outside wall of a small, grubby room near the North River docks. An electric line from the roof antenna had been hooked into the set near the back. A small table stood in the middle of the room; folding chairs were stacked against a wall. A pair of suitcases were placed against the wall, and in the closet, the door of which was open, hung several sets of clothes. One of the suits was the uniform of a detention guard. Three others in view had the bright epaulettes of the royal guard of Prince Tydore.
The outer door opened, a hand sneaked in, switched on the light, and two men came in, panting from the long walk upstairs.
“Bah!” snapped the big bald-headed man. “Three flights up and I’m dead!”
Crewcut pulled one of the folding chairs from the wall, set it up, and slumped in it. “I’m beat.”
“What a crummy place,” Baldy growled, glancing around.
A large rat, startled by the slam of the door and the voices of the two men, scuttled along the floor molding, turning its he'ad once to focus its gleaming red eyes on the human intruders.
“Yeow!” screeched Crewcut. “A rat!”
Baldy cursed. “Beat it, rat!” He stared right back at the beady red eyes.
The rat grimaced—an expression Baldy took to be a malevolent grin—and moved sedately along to the corner where two moldings came together in a bad carpenter’s joint. He pushed his nose into the crack at the joint and vanished behind the wall.
“We’ve got to wrap up this job and get out of here,” snapped Crewcut. “I don’t like this setup one bit.”
“Come on,” chided Baldy. “You’re a big boy now. You’re an Assassin. Assassins don’t cry, do they?”
“Shut up, you hairless freak. You don’t like it any better than I do.”
“No, I don’t, but until we show some results, we’re stuck here. So let’s get moving.”
Crewcut gazed at the portable transmitter. “Wait till Sheik-al-Jabal gets the bill for that little beauty. We’ll all be looking for jobs.”
Baldy snorted. “The police confiscated the other unit. It was getting untrustworthy, anyway. Now where’s that list of names you got from our contact in Canada?”
Crewcut handed a sheet over to Baldy, who looked at it carefully. “Six. That ought to do the trick. I suppose they’ll be here any minute.”
Ten minutes later there was a series of knocks on the door—one short, two longs, and a short.
Baldy opened the door.
A stoop-shouldered, powerful-looking, piratical character entered. He had squint eyes, a mop of black hair that hung over his ears, and was dressed in a seaman’s high-necked shirt and deck pants.
“I’m Damon,” he said, giving one of the code names written on the sheet of paper. Baldy nodded. “The rest will be coming.”
Soon five other nondescript thugs entered the little room, and Baldy surveyed them with satisfaction.
“Okay. You take orders from me. That’s all you need to know. We’ve got the uniforms here in the closet.” Baldy gestured to the half-open door. “Each one of you knows exactly what to do. You just get in that suite and get rid of one of the guards already there and take his place. I don’t care how you work it out, just so long as you do it. Any questions?”
No one had any.
“That’s it, then. Get yourself a uniform from the closet and split.”
In five minutes the six cutthroats had left, each carrying one of the uniforms Baldy had stolen from Prince Tydore’s royal luggage.
Crewcut sat down in front of the transmitter. He switched on the warm-up toggle.
Baldy sighed. “All right. Let’s see how we word this one. We won’t call it Failure Number Two. We’ll say Plan Two is over. Now for Plan Three.” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “No matter what we say, Kali will hit the ceiling.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sheik-al-Jabal Hara Kali arose and donned the sacred blood-red ceremonial robe of the Cult of the Silken Noose, observed himself in the mirror with satisfaction, inserted a cigarette in his ivory holder, and walked out of his bedroom into the dining room of the palace.
It was early, and even though he knew it was nighttime on the other side of the globe where his cultists were working, he hastened across the sandy tropical yard to the small radio shack which had been built on the highest point of the promontory so that its antenna could pick up the most remote signals with ease.
The turbaned radio operator glanced up at Kali peering in through the doorway.
“Have we received a message from America?”
“None,” responded the operator.
Kali puffed on his cigarette furiously. Behind the monocle his eye glinted with frustration. Three full days since he had received half a message, and that one broken off in the middle. Fools! They were trained to cope with emergencies. Why hadn’t they fixed the set or purchased a new one? They had the proper credit cards and a blanket authorization to use them if necessary.
It occurred to him again that total disaster might have struck, that all of them might have been imprisoned. But that was highly unlikely. There were too many of them in position in America. Someone could have—would have—gotten through to him by radio.
No, this was a momentary setback, that was all. But what was worrying him was the lack of money for future operations. Without the Palmer money, the Tydore operation was overextending their credit. And without the Tydore money —and that quickly—the operation at the White House would have to wait. And that was the culm
ination of the present phase of operations.
Kali swept past the courtyard where Toto, the gorilla, sat chained to the wall.
The big beast leaped up and down and beat on his chest as Kali passed, grimacing at him. Kali knew the beast hated cigarette smoke. It apparently stirred some atavistic instinct against forest fires in his intelligence centers, and he blew a cloud at him maliciously.
Toto banged on the ground and jumped back against the stone wall, howling.
In a few moments, Kali was passing through the dungeon section of the castle. When he came to the barred door, he saw Diana Palmer standing there.
Her hair was disheveled, and her dress was wrinkled. Even though her face had been washed with the water he had grudgingly offered her the night before, she seemed somewhat untidy. It was obvious that, confined to the cell, she could not take care of her grooming, but that was her problem, not his.
“You brute,” Diana began. “When are you going to let me out of here?”
“When the money is paid, Miss Palmer, and not one instant sooner!”
“I hope my uncle never pays you!” snapped Diana in a fit of temper.
“I’m not blaming you, Miss Palmer,” said Kali smoothlys “but I do wish your people would act.”
“I don’t understand why they haven’t tried to contact you.”
Kali did not inform her that his own communications system had broken down completely, preventing him from sending any more ransom instructions.
“Nor do I, Miss Palmer.”
Tears started to gather in Diana’s eyes. She blinked them away. “I beg of you to let me out in the sunshine today. Would you please?”
Kali frowned. “Perhaps.”
“You promised me the first day, and the second, and you broke your promises. But you’ve simply got to let me out. I’m withering away in here.”
He liked her spirit, but at the present time he couldn’t bother with spirit. He simply had to make some progress on the negotiations. He turned his back on her and puffed away in self-contempt.
“Are you going to let me walk today?” Diana demanded.
“I’ll think about it,” Kali said darkly.
“If this cult of yours had any decency, it wouldn’t allow you to torture human beings the way you do.”
Kali turned on her, his lips drawn back into a thin line. “Our cult is one of the oldest in the modem Western world, Miss Palmer. The phase through which we are presently passing is a dangerous one. This is the phase of rebuilding toward the glorious days! We fully intend to remake the entire Western world over into the image of paradise.”
“Humph,” snorted Diana. “You sound like some kind of nut.”
“The cult of assassination is merely the first phase of our plan to dominate the world with enlightenment, scientific knowledge, and eternal justice.”
“A fine way to start—kidnapping people,” muttered Diana. “Budgetary problems have made it necessary, Miss Palmer,” mused Kali. “Some day you will thank your lucky stars for having helped us toward our goal.” Kali puffed on his cigarette and gazed at the high square window, his voice exultant. “We will form a society superior to any other in the history of the world.”
Diana shook her head.
“O Jabal, O Kali,” a voice sounded outside the castle.
Kali straightened. “The radio operator.” He turned to Diana. “Perhaps this is your lucky day, my dear.”
The static on the set was horrendous, but Kali could hear the faint voice of his American malik:
“... reporting, Sheik-al-Jabal! Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes,” snapped Kali, leaning over the operator’s shoulder and grabbing the microphone. “Will you please tell me what has been happening?”
“A great...” The voice faded. “... and then of course—” “Stop, stop!” growled Kali. “Go back over that, will you? I didn’t hear.”
“Oh. The ransom in the Palmer affair was not delivered, Jabal. The Phantom tried to destroy us, but he failed.”
“Who was that?”
“The Phantom. The Ghost Who Walks.”
“Say that again?”
“The Ghost Who Walks—an avenging spirit.”
Kali cursed to himself. “Go on, go on! We’ll straighten this all out later.”
“The police found the transmitter, and we had to purchase another. In the meantime, we proceeded to the second affair—the Tydore kidnapping.*1 “Yes, yes.”
“Unfortunately, through excessive zeal of the authorities, we were unable to bring the Princess to our secret airport for delivery to the island. Therefore—•”
Kali groaned. “Where is the Princess now?”
“She has vanished. We are now about to threaten Prince Tydore and kidnap him if he refuses to pay the ransom.”
“Do not fail again, Malik, or I will have you replaced.” “Yes, sire.”
“Now who is this Phantom you have been jabbering about?”
“We suspect he was likewise responsible for the disappearance of the Princess after we failed to kidnap her.”
“Eliminate him. Do you have to be told every step to take?”
“He is a difficult man to eliminate,” the voice complained. “We have tried everything. Some say he is simply a spirit and not a human being at all.”
“You superstitious fools! Do I have to come back to America, and do it for you?”
“We will succeed, never fear, sire.”
“You had better,” grumbled Kali.
“We will be contacting Prince Tydore tonight, sire.”
“Good. Have you infiltrated his guards?”
“That move is now in the works. We will deliver the note tonight.”
“Very well. If he balks, move on to Phase Three.”
“Yes, sire. That is, kidnap him and take him to the secret airport for transshipment to the island.”
“Exactly. Now let’s go back to the Palmer affair.”
“Yes?”
“Deliver another ransom note. Set up the meet for anyplace you want, but make this one work. If you don’t get the money tonight, I’ll put out an order to assassinate both the Palmers—mother and uncle. There will be repercussions if this happens, as you well know.”
“Sire, must we—?”
“You must! If you fail to get the ransom, they will have to be eliminated. Now set up a successful exchange and get the money. We are in dire need of funds to move toward I’Affaire de la Maison Blanche."
“The what?”
“Oh, forget it.”
“We’ll work it out, sire. Is that all for now?”
“Yes,” hissed Kali. “Now, you bungling fools, move and don’t commit any more silly mistakes!”
“We committed no mistakes,” howled the voice. “It was the Phantom who made our hands falter, made our eyes blur, made our hearts fail.”
“Shut up, you quivering idiots! It’s your own incompetence that’s ruining our affairs, not anything from the outside.”
“The Phantom, sire—”
“Good-bye!”
Sheik-al-Jabal Hara Kali pulled the plug of the microphone out of the control panel and handed it to the startled operator.
Then Kali stomped off across the sand to the castle basement where he stared at Diana Palmer a moment in ugly silence.
“You’d better start saying whatever prayers you know, Miss Palmer. We’re going to try again to get that money from your people. If it isn’t forthcoming immediately, I’ll have to get rid of you.”
Diana Palmer turned pale.
“And I’ll have to kill your mother and uncle, too. They know too much about us.”
“Please, no!” cried Diana.
“Just pray. It’s your only hope.” ~~
Kali spun on his heel and stalked off through the dank corridors of the ancient castle dungeon.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Stepping off the elevator on the seventeenth floor of the Hotel Majestic, the Phantom adjusted his dark glasses and t
rench coat carefully and strolled along the corridor to the Royal Suite.
The plan he had outlined to Police Commissioner Nolan was characteristically simple and to the point: since the police were not going to guard Prince Tydore, the Phantom would do so himself. And if there was a ransom note or a telephone call, the Phantom would take care of that, too. There were several options open.
Nolan had agreed to let the Phantom take over, but not without some hesitation. However, the Phantom could be persuasive when he wished to be, and he had won over the Commissioner without excessive argument.
The royal guards straightened when the Phantom appeared at the doorto the Royal Suite.
“I’d like to see Prince Tydore, please,” said the Phantom, “I’m sorry. He’s not receiving visitors.”
The guards were both husky brutes, the Phantom noticed. The speaker had no accent whatsoever. If anything, he spoke rather uneducated English. The Phantom studied him carefully, without seeming to, and then turned his attention to the other guard.
Both ignored him.
“Tell him Mr. Walker is here,” said the Phantom. “He’s expecting me.”
The second guard cleared his throat. “We’ve been told no one is to come in tonight,” he said in a surly tone.
“I see.”
The Phantom realized that the guards were impostors. Prince Tydore’s men were by no means sophisticated gentlemen, but they were at least presentable. These two uniformed men struck the Phantom as thugs. He recalled Nolan’s story about the murderer who had infiltrated the detention ward in a fake uniform. If these two were Assassins pretending to be guards of Prince Tydore . ..
“Please tell Prince Tydore I called, if you will?” the Phantom said politely and rang for the elevator. When it came, he stepped inside, glancing once out at the two guards who were watching him, and pressed the button for the sixteenth floor.
There he stepped out and walked to the end of the corridor where a window looked out over the city. He knew that there was no fire escape leading to Prince Tydore’s window, but there was one leading to Princess Naji’s.
However, when he opened the window, he discovered that the facade of the building was composed of large slabs of rock at least a foot long and two feet wide. Between these rock slabs there were indentations an inch deep. The Phantom could easily scale such a wall, using the tremendous strength of his fingers to cling to the rock slabs as if they were steps.
Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 14] Page 10
